PUBGAS, you know, listening to PUBGAS, the terrorists are winning. That's what James Morrison. Welcome to the PUBGcast. Sit down and enjoy a point.
Welcome to the Groundhog Day episode of the PUBGcast. Halston and Eric joined me to break down one of our favorite movies from 1993. It's the 30th anniversary of this classic from Bill Murray and Harold Lamus, and this is one of those rare comedies that really had an impact on the culture for decades at the release. It made the term Groundhog Day synonymous with repeated over and over, and this movie always reappears on TV and streaming services every year in late January or early February.
The lines and scenes are funny and great throughout, and this is definitely one of Bill Murray's most memorable performances. So don't drive angry as we break down Groundhog Day. Groundhog Day. A thousand people, freezing their butts off, waiting to worship a rat.
Witherman Bill Connors. He's spending the day in Pucksatani, Pennsylvania. Phil? Mad.
Mad Ryerson. I did the whistling belly butt trick of the high school talent show. Bing. Bing.
But Bill's about to find out. He's not just stuck in Pucksatani. Will you be checking out today, Mr. Connors?
Chance at a departure today of 100%. He's stuck. It's Groundhog Day. In Groundhog Day, I'm reliving the same day over and over.
Bill? Ned Ryerson. Bing. Do you ever have Deja Vu and his Lancaster?
I don't think so, but I could check with Kitchen. Well, it's Groundhog Day. Again, at first he was a little anxious. Bill?
What are you taking out today, Mr. Connors? I'd say the chance of departure is 80%. But now, we could do whatever we want.
He's discovering the possibilities. Don't you worry about cholesterol? Why? And living life like there's no tomorrow.
Phil Connors! Ned! Because there is a... I'm in a mortal.
I have been stabbed, shot, burned, and frozen, electrocuted. I'm a god. You're a god. I'm a god.
I'm not the god. He's out of his court. But to get what his heart wants most... What are you looking for Phil at day for the weekend?
...means living this day over again. Till he gets it right. Well, later not, I studied 19th century French poetry. What a waste of time.
I studied 19th century French poetry. I speak French. You speak French. Wait.
Bill Murray. Andy McDowell. To the Groundhog. Always drink to world peace.
What should we drink to? I'd like to say prayer and drink to world peace. Don't try to angry. Don't try to angry.
He might be okay. Yes! Groundhog Day! Life has a funny way of repeating itself.
What did you do today? All same, all same. Groundhog Day, 1993. The no nonsense plot.
A narcissistic, self-centered weatherman finds himself in a time loop on Groundhog Day. And day keeps repeating until he gets it right. I guess. Narcissistic and self-centered, doesn't it?
Sort of... I know. All right. I'm in.
It's got me. That description gets you in. I'm in. Yeah.
I don't... I thought I would have doubled down on the narcissistic, self-centered. Just call him Snarky and move on. But she's fine.
Okay. Overall reaction is the movie. We saw this in the theater for sure. I did for sure.
And I know we liked it instantly. Yeah. It's all the people that we like from the 80s. All the people.
It was Bill Murray and Hill Rayman's, the director. And he did some of the writing as well. So it was formulaic for us going in. It was great.
And we liked those guys. We liked the style of humor. It looked great going in. We liked it way better coming out.
I think it was... To me, it was almost like an instant classic coming out of the theater. Yeah. For sure.
Yeah. I would agree. Yeah. It was great.
Eric, what did you think when you saw it first? I did not see in the theater. First time I saw it was a couple of years later on table. And yeah, I took to it instantly.
I love it right away. What's interesting, I've thought about this, is that the movie title has become a term now that people use. Like if something keeps happening over and over again, the saying is now it's groundhog day. Right.
Yeah. Did you see what Ebert said about it? No. Oh, Ebert talks about that.
Oh, really? So Roger Ebert did his original movie review in 1993, gave it three stars. Okay. And had various good things and criticisms, whatever.
Fine. He revisited it. Revisited this movie in 2005 and gave it four stars. Like he highest rating.
Yeah. Yeah. And he says, I certainly, certainly I underrated it in my original review. I enjoyed it so easily that I was seduced into cheerful moderation.
But there are a few films, and this is one of them, that burrow into our memories and become reference points. When you find yourself needing the phrase, this is like groundhog day to explain how you feel. A movie has accomplished something. Yeah.
So that's funny. He talks about, and through his second review, he talks about how awesome it is and how it unfolds inevitably. But it's so entertaining. You may see where it's going, but you don't care.
It's just so low down and the pacing is good. And it's effortless and all that sort of stuff. So he loved it. Yeah.
Even more of the second time or later on. Well, and there's shockingly more depth of emotion that Bill Marie goes through in this whole, kind of the revelation of what he was about to experience. And then, you know, it's almost like the seven stages of grief. Like it's like his life is over, but it keeps going kind of thing.
Well, since you mentioned it, I'm going to jump into that. Okay. Interesting. From the trivia section.
Okay. In the course of the film, Bill Connors goes through the five stages of grief developed by psychiatrist Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. I'm going to say her seven. Okay.
She says her five. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Mm-hmm. So I mean, you nailed it.
And yeah, watching it this time, you can see that almost instantly, like it's during the second day, possibly, if not the third day, he's miserable and he knows, oh, I'm fucked. Yeah. I can't do anything. He tries everything, but he couldn't leave.
He can't, like nothing he can do will change it. I do love the first part of this, the first repeat day where he is like, weirded out and he's like, what is it? You know, like, It's a year, right? Yeah.
That's great. Yeah. Yeah. Bill Murray's great movie.
Okay. Box office performance. Okay. Let's think about this.
It was, I don't know. That was a big movie. Did it come out around Groundhog Day? I would have to look that up.
Okay. Let's just say for shits and gables, it did. Okay. So there was a movie.
Oh, this is, it released February 12th. Interesting. Yeah. After Groundhog Day.
It seems like a miss- Yeah. Yeah. I feel like a mid-January. Yeah.
Would have made more sense. Groundhog Day doesn't get a lot of play in like, movie, hotlines or looks or any- The holiday movie. There's nothing. They couldn't have accelerated that by two or three weeks.
You could own Groundhog Day and miss it. And it's more than some other children not that came out that they were not wanting to compete against. But that's weird though, because February is usually that, like it's, yeah, it's where they just very sort of movies that they don't expect to do well. Yeah.
You know, it's all award seasons are all over and everything and that's just- It's award season. Yeah. So it's January, February, March. Are typically all- Right.
Dead. Yeah. That's where movies put out their sticker, or studios put out their stickers for a black rubber word. I'm going to hide it.
So we did cover 93 before with some of these movies. There are some heavy hitters this year. So Jurassic Park. Right.
Big-ish. Slightly big. 338 million. The fugitive, 176 million.
The firm, 158 million. Sleepless in Seattle, 126 million. Mrs. Doubtfire, 109.
In these in proposal, 106. In the line of Fire, 102. Aladdin at 99. Clip hanger, awesome.
At number 9, 84 million. And a few good men with 78 million. Disney's Aladdin only did 99 million. Yeah.
I mean, that's a sea one. It came out. I assume it was a summer release, but you know, I don't know. It feels low.
Yeah. Tom Cruise, hitting with two in the top 10 in the same year. That's insane. Groundhog Day, number 12.
No. That's not too shabby. Just out of the top 10 with 71 million. Wow.
Now the budget. I saw- 7 million. This is the first one. It made 71.
Yeah. Domestic box office. The budget. I've seen a sliding scale of possibilities of what it might have cost.
Okay. The number I saw- Most often was 14.6 million. But I saw it could be as high as 30 million, like somewhere between 14 and 30. Wow.
That's a big range. I understand how that- That's a big range. That deal is what- What did I spend it on? I spent it on- Yeah.
There isn't- There isn't- It seems like it was a very simple shoot. I mean, just- Yeah. Even because- There's- It's only a few setups because you're doing the same thing over and over again. Just in a slightly different way.
Yeah. I mean, you can shoot his wake-up scenes 100 different ways in half a day. Right. Yeah.
Or him and Rita sitting at the bar with the- ordering a drink over and over and over again. It's just- The whole point is that it's the same thing over and over. So it's not like you have to really even change anything. Yeah.
And there's no effects. It's just- Yeah. In a lot of- And it was on location. And it was on location.
Like they weren't building a lot. Right. Yeah. So who knows?
They're paying off the city of Woodstock or something or whatever. But I don't know how it is- It's 30. Regardless. It didn't cost that much and it made double or triple or quadruple its money.
The special effects of the weather map. The use of again. The chroma key budget was 10 million dollars. Rotten tomato scores.
What do you guys think the audience gave it? 85. Eric. I will say 88.
Audience gave it 88. Oh. Eric, no. I don't know.
I don't think he had someone in it. No. No. That's good.
All right. So audience was 88. Critics. What do we get the critics gave it?
Well, I mean we had the Roger Ebert so bad and went back and re-reviewed it. He still gave it 3 out of 4. I'm going to go 85. Eric, 79.
All right. This is one of the rare times where the critics are above the audience. Oh. So audience gave it 88.
Critics gave it 94. Whoa. Wow. So Roger Ebert that first time out really was out there on his own.
He's an outlier. He brought down the average. Yeah. Even though 3 out of 4 is still good.
It's- Yeah. I know. You're like that much. Insane.
All right. Let's get to the trivia part. There's all kinds of like little stupid stuff, but I tried to pick the fun facts that were a little more interesting, a little more significant. I don't know if I did that successfully.
We shall see. Bill Murray was bitten by the groundhog twice during sugar. He had to have anti-rhabies in Jackson. Oh my god.
Because the bites were so severe. One of the times he got bitten was the don't drive angry scene. Oh, right. Because- That- Groundhog didn't want to be told what to do.
That line was improvised because the groundhog was getting all fidgety and feisty and was trying to escape over the- Oh my god. The steering wheel. And so he- So Murray sort of played into it. Oh my god.
That's good. Yeah. I watched a little bit of an interview with Harold Ramis talking about that and they said the groundhog bit Bill Murray threw a leather glove. Yeah.
And got him like so bad that it was- It was like- Now. Fitches and ragi shots and it was a really bad bite. Groundhog just had those beaver teeth and they could just go through anything. All the clocks in the diner are stopped.
Obviously. Mearing Bill's predicament. In the course of the film- Oh, we talked about that. The five stages of the brief.
Yeah. That's a good one. Four seven. If you're me.
Seven if you double up a couple of them. Okay. We've talked about this. We've seen this published a bunch of times over the years and it's been- This is the 20th anniversary.
30th anniversary. So, uh, uh, this stuff has been out there for a while. How long is Phil stuck in the time loop? Oh, I don't know.
So- And there is no- There's no answer really. Okay. Harold Ramis used to say 10 years. But then, you know, later on he bumped it to 30 or 40 years to give Phil time to become an expert at things like ice sculpting and playing a piano and whatever.
In an early draft, which is named Ruben, Danny Ruben, the other writer. He estimated that Phil had been in the time loop for 70 or 80 years. Oh my God. And there are, you know, there are people, you know, scientists or whatever they're trying to do.
Figure this out for fun, but also, you know, right, put some scientific effort behind it. And they'll talk like it could have been 10,000 years. It could be any number of years or days or whatever. And that's why he knows everyone, everything.
He knows what's going to happen every minute, essentially. So who knows? It's like that. I could have sworn that- And getting back to that, one of the original drafts, it was they were considering having it- You had been there like 10,000 years.
Yeah, I saw that mentioned. I think it was like that number that had come up in like some sort of philosophical writings that 10,000 years- There was something different to that. 10,000 years. 10,000 years.
Yeah, 10,000 years. That's how long some people are saying he was in that loop. Because of the history of that number in philosophy and then reaching some existential claim. Yeah, I was going to say, well, I had not done the math until I kind of thinking about it.
But like if you think about them kind of like an expert in something, it's like what, 10,000 hours of whatever. Sure. So he does the piano, the ice sculpting, the learning French, and like all of these other skills, plus then all of the time that he spent, like you said, learning every person, every aspect of that town, memorizing everything that happened. Do you know what else he learned?
What? In the deleted scenes. He became a trick shot pool genius, an expert pool player, and would hustle people because he could do all kinds of trick shots. He could predict all the outcomes and point spreads of various sporting events.
Right. Like enough activity. Yeah. He was the other one.
Oh, he became a easily bold perfect game. He became an expert bowler as well. Oh, yeah. He became the bowling out.
Right. So add all those things into the things that he became expert at. Oh my god. Yeah.
That's good. So the answer is we don't know how long, but it was, it wasn't like, oh, a few days or a few weeks. That really does put it into perspective. The, like that would make somebody go insane.
Insane. Absolutely insane. No matter what you do, you can't even leave that little town. Yeah.
It tries. It's impossible. Yeah. It sucks.
It's like a, it's purbatory. Right. Okay. There's that.
There were some different versions of the script where this or that happens. I mean, there's a handful of those I don't want to get into really, but, you know, somewhere he breaks the time loop by, yeah, forget it. There's a bunch of nonsense of possible or pre-existing drafts of the script that had in breaking the time loop or doing different things that didn't end up in the movie. They didn't for a reason.
Right. Yeah. Okay. Well, the ending party scene where everyone thanks, Bill, for helping them throughout the day with the tires or the choking hazard and all this stuff.
That was originally supposed to take place at Red and Debbie's wedding. You know, how they, at the end, they're, he gives them the tickets to WrestleMania. Right. That party was going to be there like wedding.
Oh, interesting. Okay. And I need to, I need to, this is a good time to point it out. Yeah.
I was mentioned before and I was super excited about it when I spotted it. Fred in his feature film debut was played by Michael Shannon. Right. Oh, yeah.
Yeah. We saw it as well. That's a good one. And yeah, I never noticed it before and lost it when I saw it.
Yeah. One of my, I wrote down it just a hand. A handful of trivia things. And you know, I love trivia like this, but Rita slaps Phil 10 times in the movie.
Yeah. So like, I love like a good count of some. I like a good, like a body count. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Um, I did not pay attention to all of the, um, you know, you could probably watch this movie 25 times to look at all of the people in the background of different scenes and kind of like how it overlaps in and of it, like on itself. But when he's in the hospital with old man in the background, there's a boy with a broken leg.
And that's supposed to be the boy that fell out of the tree. Yeah. And so like it's just like all of these different scenes and people in the background are really based on what he does or doesn't do throughout the movie. Ned Ryer.
Uh, so Stephen Tablowski plays Ned Ryerson, of course. Said he based his portrayal based on his actual insurance agent. Yeah. And the agent called to thank him for accurately portraying an insurance agent and not making fun of them because that's normally how they get portrayed and it's like what?
Yeah. Dude, they're making fun of you. The agent was happy that he got all the terms and the information. Right.
Yes. Um, for those that are in the Chicagoland area, um, Steve Gahl was asked to do the morning radio show in the morning and his co-host or somebody didn't quite get it. And so they declined and Gary from Stephen Gary. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. So that didn't happen. And Eric, you will love this and I'm sure you pick up on it.
But Chris Elliott is in something else with another character in this show. And that is Inchitt's Creek. Doris is Wendy Inchitt's Creek. Oh, the Plaspar.
The Pinterest is. Yes. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
He's the Flora. Oh, the Plaspar. It is well known that Bill Murray can be difficult to work with. Yes.
So eccentric and whatever. He was particularly difficult to work with on this movie. Oh, really? Um, he and Harold Ramis obviously have friends that have worked together forever.
Um, but they were always fighting on the movie on this movie. I mean, that one. It's funny. Ramis was focused on making this a comedy while Murray was more interested in the philosophical elements of the character in the story of it.
So, uh, Ramis says, uh, he was just really irrationally mean and unavailable, uh, throughout shooting. Like, interesting. He wanted, Bill Murray wanted to make an entirely different movie. I was like, screw this comedy.
We were going to make some deep philosophical statement here. Interesting. And Ramis is like, dude, this is a comedy that was okay. And I'd also read that Bill Murray had been, he was going through a divorce at the time.
And was constantly calling Harold Ramis at all hours of the day to talk about the movie. Yeah. He was so focused on that. And Harold Ramis had to have like, uh, an assistant or somebody go to Bill Murray to shut that down.
Yeah. That's what led to their, like, and they were fighting so bad on this. They felt out so bad that they did not speak again for 20 years. Oh my god, really?
Uh, until just before Ramis died in 2014. I had no idea. Harold Ramis was on his death bed. I remember reading about this that Bill Murray went to see him like a couple of weeks before he died or whatever it was.
They fought about this movie and it really had that relationship for 20 years. It started here. I'm sure it's- I know, but- Oh my god. Yeah.
Wow. Yeah. That's what you do. Interesting.
All right. Any other- Eric, did you have any trivia? Um, I think we covered it. I can't figure anything else.
All right. The casting stuff. Oh, I had one other thing. Oh.
It's super small, but the sweet vermouth on the rocks with a twist was Harold Ramis's wife's favorite drink. Yeah. And so he wanted to incorporate that in there. Like, it's kind of an unusual- This is the second time a week ago somebody mentioned vermouth as a drink and I was like, who- No one drinked just vermouth.
Then it came up in the movie. Okay. Okay. Okay.
The casting stuff. There's a lot of weird information on who was cast for Phil. We talked about- This was Michael Shannon's first movie as for the young newlywed Fred guy. Okay.
Let's do Rita first. I only have one name and it's weird. And then I have no other information about who is considered verita. Okay.
The only one I have is Tori Amos. Oh. Wow. Singer.
Is she playing the piano the whole time? Yeah. I don't understand. Wow.
Has she ever acted in anything? Not aware of anything. That's the only one that I saw. She was weird.
Popular in 92.93 though, but wow. That's great. I think considered Debbie Gibson as well. No, different here.
Okay. Phil Connors. I got a lot of information here. I don't know what's what.
So I'll just go through what I think I know. Danny Rubin, the screenwriter, wanted originally Kevin Klein to play Bill. Oh. Yeah.
That would be good. Yeah. Yep. Yep.
Definitely. But he had, as a screenwriter, he had no say in it, so it's normally considered it. Harold Ramis wanted Tom Hanks. Tom Hanks turned it down.
Oh, interesting. Tom Hanks didn't want, he didn't think he could be that kind of a snarky a-hole. Yeah. Who knows.
Do you think that's why Bill Murray was mad at Harold Ramis to start? Mm-hmm. Michael Keaton was offered it. Turn it down.
Wow. And then I have a list of people that Ramis may have considered. Okay. I don't really believe this list, but it's out there.
Shari Chase. Okay. Steve Martin. All right.
Robin Williams. Hey. Michael Keaton, we just talked about. Yeah.
And John Travolta. No. That's not true. That's what I read.
I don't know how valid that is, but it said- Like really weird. It said, so Ramis considered most of them far too nice compared to Bill Murray. Shari Chase could have done it. Oh, yeah.
Michael Keaton could have done it. Yeah. I think Keaton totally could have done it. The first handful of the people that you mentioned could have done it.
Yeah. Steve Martin. Sure. Robin Williams.
Robin Williams. Good. Yeah. I like the Kevin Klein one.
Yeah. Tom Hanks. Probably to pull it off. Yeah.
The other one's whatever. He's a good actor. That was a big. That's all I mean.
In the same interview that I watched with Harold Barrema said I mentioned before, he talked about the potential casting of Tom Hanks. And he said that after the movie came out, Tom Hanks talked to him about it and said, it was good that you had Bill Murray play that part because everybody thinks of me as nice. Even if I had been playing mean at the beginning of the movie, eventually everybody was expecting me to become nice. But with Bill Murray, you don't know what you're going to get.
We basically would have came down to him. Bill he could be nice or he could be Bill Murray and it's just a complete wild card. Interesting. Okay.
Yeah. I mean, you don't want your audience coming with that kind of baggage, like waiting for the term. Yeah. That much expectation.
Yeah. Okay. Let's get to the recasting debate. We call it recast debate.
Better close the door. It's time to recasturvete. We've got four. We're doing Phil, who's Bill Murray, Rita, who's Andy McDowell, Larry, who's Chris Elliott, and Ned, who's Steven Tobelowski.
This really could just be Phil and Rita at the end of the casting, but we threw those other ones in this case. I don't really like most of my answers. I've got a couple here and there to find it. I've got a cast swap and then I tried to do like a gender flip as well.
I've got like a cast swap so four for four. Yeah. I mean, it's more like kind of like the whole thing. And it really got inspired by one of the pieces of trivia that I shared earlier about the Chris Elliott and Doris being in Shitscribe.
All right. Well, then do that. It's just it's taking the Shitscreek cast and all of those people being then in the small town and whatever. And so you can have like Dan Levy is playing the kind of the snarky big city guy having to cover the small town nonsense.
Yeah. You can have it could be the woman who plays Stevie and like I know you're not as familiar about the character, but like you can take just about every character from that show and sort of plug them in to characters from this movie. So Dan Levy's sister is Rita then? No, well, or it could be or it could be Patrick, the guy who plays Patrick or whatever.
So you could do it like it doesn't have to be a hero section. Oh yeah, whatever. Could it be? Would it be all of the roses being stuck in the loop?
I didn't think all that, but that would be super funny. No, but I was thinking like Eugene Levy could play the mayor with Bob like being the sidekick, you know, pulling the groundhog out. Chris Elliott could be like one of the jokers at the bowling alley. The drunk guys.
But you don't want Chris Elliott to be Chris Elliott? No, no, no. He's going to be played by somebody else. I want Eugene Levy to be in the filbert.
From not from what I was saying. I don't know. But anyway, so that was kind of my cast swap idea. And it's really kind of just building off of small town to small town.
Yeah. All right. Well, let's start with Bill. OK.
I'll start with mine. I really have one answer, but I threw out some names that are possible. I really want to put Donald Glover in this movie in this part. I don't know if he can sell this part as well.
I think he might be fine, but I don't know. So that's a name I was considering. Who knows? One I like, the snark will be there.
Will Arnett. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty good.
Well, my number two, I think, would be Joel McHale. OK. Yeah. He's played Chevy Jason in the movie.
Why did he play Bill Murray in the movie? Oh, yeah. My number one, I think, is Bill Hader. Oh, that was mine.
I think it's a layup. I think we had this problem, I think, which goes much as well. Trying to replace Bill Murray in a movie is impossible. Yeah, it's very good.
So Bill Hader is my closest bet right there. All right. Eric, give us your fill. OK.
Yeah. Yeah. I was going along the lines. I could play the jerk.
So someone like Bill Hader for me doesn't necessarily feel that role for me. Walk through Phoenix was one that I thought of that, baby. Wow. Yeah.
But the one that I thought of, as soon as we said, we were doing this movie and the name that popped into my head right away and snuck with me the whole way is John Hamm. Oh, that's good. That's good. That's pretty good.
That's pretty good. That's pretty good. Did you see him in that new Fletch movie, Eric? Not yet.
Fletch confess or something like that. Fletch. Fletch. That is a good window into John Hamm, potentially for a role like this.
But yeah, that's good. OK. John Hamm's a good one. Yeah.
So Bill Hader was my top. I know you guys might grow in a little bit, but I think Ryan Reynolds could play this part. Yeah. That's a movie I don't want to see.
I know. The gender swap is Cecily Strong. Who's Cecily Strong? What?
From SNL? That was my name? Strong. Strong.
OK. Dark hair. She just left the show. Yeah.
That's interesting. Playing the self-centered narcissistic weather person. Uh-uh. That's a strong one.
All right. That's good. OK. Rita.
Eric, why don't you start with a Rita? OK. It has, it had no real, and yet it was no real reason for it. The character for her to have a southern accent because it was just Andy McDonald.
Can I speak normally? And she had a southern accent, but I sort of went along with that. I was trying to think of actresses that were from the south. One name that I came up with first that I think is OK, but I don't really like is Reese Witherspoon.
Oh. But then I think the one that I like the best that I thought of, and again, I'm not super excited about it, but Jennifer Garner sort of, Oh. So that sort of, Other name that hasn't come up on the... What I like about that is that it is a name that is new to Smosely.
Yeah. I may have come up here and there, but I, on a lot of my names throughout the rest of these people, I hit a lot of my, I went to my bench and I found the same people. Mm-hmm. I, these will sound very familiar to anybody who listened to this podcast.
Yeah. But not all of them. So my Rita, my third place is Lizzie Kaplan, who was talking about her recently. She was in Misery.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. That TV show. Yep.